Operation Vijay, 1961 - A writeup contest entry by Vaibhav Joshi

By Vaibhav Joshi

 Gangadhar Shastri, a young news reporter, was travelling across the beaches of Goa. He was on a holiday but then he got a mail from his editor about a topic on which they required an article for next year’s Republic Day. The topic was - Nationality and he was unable to start with something unique. He wanted to write something on how Republic day and nationality can be related. He thought of writing about the constitution and how it can be related to nationality. But he wanted his article to be unique, which was also the problem as he was unable to start the article. 

As he was on a holiday, he was staying at his uncle, Mr. Vidyadhar Shastri’s house, who was a school teacher in Goa and was also a great thinker. His uncle listened to his issues with a lot of patient and then asked him “What do you think Nationality means?” Gangadhar replied “A status of belonging to a particular nation”. “Well you are right but that is an answer from Google. Tell me what you understand about nationality” said his uncle. Gangadhar was silent for a while and then said “If we belong to a nation, we will work towards building it in the direction of development. When we are able achieve that, and then our nationality is worth proven”. His uncle looked at him and realized, it was a mistake to ask him difficult questions. He then thought for a while and told Gangadhar to write about Operation Vijay. Without wasting time, Gangadhar searched for it on Google and found that his uncle was talking about Kargil war. The uncle told him that Opeartion Vijay was initiated in 1961 to free Goa from the Portuguese inquisition of the land. Gangadhar again searched and found the first article – Annexation of Goa. His uncle took his laptop and told him to get out of the delusion of searching everything on Google. “Then how am I supposed to write my article?” asked Gangadhar. His uncle explained “Annexation means taking someone’s property by force or without permission. Goa was a land on Indian Territory and was annexed by the Portuguese in 16th century AD. We Indians call it the liberation of Goa from the hands of outsiders.”  “But what is the actual story?” asked Gangadhar. 

Uncle explained “The Portuguese came to India in the 16th century. As they wanted a mainland for Port and good trade routes, they made Goa as the center place. While Indians were dealing with Britishers during the 18th and 19th century, Goa was unfazed and even after the independence, the land of Goa, Daman & Deu and Dadara and Nagarhaweli were under the Portuguese rule. For 14 years the Indian government was silent on the issue because they expected the Portuguese to leave the land, as the British left Pondicherry but that did not happen. The issue of Goa was raised in the late 1950s in the United Nations and many countries were in favor of getting Goa back to India. But the Portuguese government paid to heeds to the issue. Therefore on 17th December 1961, our then Prime minister – Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru initiated Operation Vijay which was the Air, Sea and land strike on the militant areas of Portuguese and took of the state of Goa in 36 hours” “Just in 36 hours?” asked Gangadhar in shock. “Yes and the Portuguese had to surrender” replied Uncle. “But this could have created a lot of political hustle on a global level” said Gangadhar. “Yes it did for a very small amount of time. But it did help you in getting a topic for your article” said Uncle. “How?” asked Gangadhar. “How a state got its nationality back - is a good topic I suppose. But now you can use Google and find out in depth about the whole thing” said Uncle and left for his evening walk. 

Gangadhar was happy as he finally got a good topic to write something.